To serve the Lord and Divine Master is to recognize the gratuity of grace that is never exhausted and never expires: everything in my life is a grace, gift, and blessing. In the presence of God, I can claim absolutely nothing as my own—except my sin. My life is at the disposal of Jesus. Detached from my pride and indifferent to the personality props, I am constantly asked to serve him by responding to the unmet need or required duty of the present moment: that might be a prayer of praise or petition, a response to someone in need, an act of forgiveness, or the offer of an apology. As happened to Blake, the operating force in my life begins to shift to the centrifugal: Jesus is the Master, and I look beyond myself to serve him and follow in his footsteps.
—from the book Soul Training with the Peace Prayer of Saint Francis
by Albert Haase, OFM
